


When The Dragons Awake

by Tomatosoupful



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Dragons, Fanart, Gen, Let Héctor say fuck, One Shot, Swearing, Worldbuilding, alebrijes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomatosoupful/pseuds/Tomatosoupful
Summary: “Papá? What are you…?"Whatever it was, he’d spotted it. He excitedly gestured her to come closer. “Look! Coco, look at this!”Tilting her head back, Coco examined the stormy sky. Nothing. But she knew by now her Papá was no liar, so she asked curiously, “What is it?”Her Papá grinned at her. “A dragon.”Alebrijes protect their special human and the three Dragon Alebrije protect the Land of the Dead. One-Shot. Fan-art inside





	When The Dragons Awake

All afternoon the Rivera household diligently worked as the calm breeze turned rough and the clouds above darkened, with the scent of an incoming storm in the air. The first few raindrops splattered against the roof as the workday ended. From inside, the Land of the Dead turned into a mesh of colours on the window panels as the rain came down heavier.

Coco laid back into her chair. She had been dead for almost a month and had settled in like a cat by a fireplace. It helped having a great-grandson drop a few hints about the afterlife, she thought with a smile. Her attention turned back to the window as thunder rumbled.

She heard footsteps. Her Papá, already wrapped up in nightwear and slippers, padded through the kitchen preparing an evening coffee for himself and Mamá. He flinched slightly at a flash of lightning and the storm’s following growl.

Coco fiddled with the material of the armchair and wondered if she should say something or to just let the storm’s atmosphere speak for them. The window creaked. Coco looked up to see her Papá pressing his hand up against the glass and peering close, trying to see something through the rain. Frowning, she asked, “Papá?”

He stepped away, mildly disappointed. If there was one thing Coco had learnt since her great-grandson arrived home after his adventure on Día de los Muertos, her Papá  _never_  gave up. She followed as he made his way to the front door, opened it and looked out, again searching for something.

“Papá? What are you…?”

Whatever it was, he’d spotted it. He excitedly gestured her to come closer. “Look! Coco, look at this!”

Invigorated by his enthusiasm, Coco ran to him, stumbling slightly as she was still unused to the lightness and flexibility her skeletal body allowed. Her Papá readily caught her hand to steady her, and then directed Coco on where to look. Tilting her head back, Coco examined the stormy sky. Nothing. But she knew by now her Papá was no liar, so she asked curiously, “What is it?”

Her Papá grinned at her. “It’s a–”

~o0o~

“–dragon.”

“A  _what_?”

Chicharrón’s face crumbled into an irritated frown at the interruption. Héctor hunched apologetically, offering a weak smile. Chich huffed, took another swig of his drink, and continued gruffly, “As I was  _saying_ , last night I saw a glow coming from the lake. By the rocks.”

Around them, the yellowed skeletons of Shantytown murmured excitedly. From the sounds of it, plans were being made while others were nervously whispering. “Ohhh,” Héctor drew out like he knew what Chich was talking about (he had absolutely no clue). “Sounds uh …” deciding to roll with it he asked casually, “Does it happen a lot around here or…?”

Beside him, a woman shrugged, and her knitting needles clicked as she answered, “I wouldn’t say all the time but enough. Certainly can’t sleep when it’s here.”

“Uh, it?” Héctor repeated.

“The  _dragon_ , like I said,” Chich said, firmly poking the fire at the centre of the Shantytown gathering.

It was the one bright spot in the shabby village after a flood had swept through. No one had felt dry in days. Some of the skeletons joked it was the landscape itself giving Héctor a soggy but warm welcome after joining the community. “Or maybe it was the serpent itself?” one man had said with a snigger. That had led to a question followed by another and another and here Héctor was now, still lost.

He wasn’t fresh off his deathbed but the vastness to the Land of the Dead never ceased to throw new difficult things at him to wrap his head around. “I... I don’t …” he squeezed at his wrist. “You mean… you mean like those fairy tales?”

Chich grunted and in a few years’ time Héctor would master grumpy-man language, as he’d call it, enough to know it meant, “Yes…   _but_ …”

“They’re real,” Chich continued. With another prod, two logs tumbled, and flicks of fire sprang up into the air. Héctor blinked away tears from the smoke and paid close attention as Chich said, “They’re like – uh – like …”

“Like  _alebrijes_?” the old lady offered, her unfinished scarf wrapped around her neck as she worked on it. “There’s three of them, they protect the Land of the Dead.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘protect,’” a woman interjected.

Another man hummed thoughtfully. “They do but I don’t think they really care about us.”

“At least not personally,” another added.

Chich nodded. “Suppose they are like  _alebrije_  but they protect the Land itself, not necessarily the Dead.”

“…Oh.” Héctor was still stuck on the existence of dragons. He warily waited for someone to snap out of it with a slap on the knee and chuckle that it was all joke. Nothing came. So, he asked cautiously, “You …mentioned a glow before?”

Another grunt from Chich. “Means the Xoxotla Serpent is–”

~o0o~

“– here.”

Héctor turned towards Chich but immediately shut his eyes and rolled away from the intense glowing pale blue light.  _This_ was why he insisted the missing wall in Chich’s shack needed to be replaced. Everything outside seeped through and disturbed them. “What is  _that_?” he groaned through his exhaustion.

He had been sleeping peacefully until Chich had unexpectedly knocked down a tower of pots and pans. Héctor rubbed the bone around his eye sockets; he just wanted was to slip back to sleep but the glow was everywhere.

Chich shoved Héctor’s hammock. “Get up! I’m not gonna have you whine about missing out just because you want sleep you don’t need!”

This time, Chich poked Héctor’s ribcage with his walking stick. It tickled slightly and scratched away at his remaining tiredness. Even so, it took a great deal of effort to finally push himself up. He stretched his bones like a cat, keeping his eyes closed but the glow still seeping through. He attempted to see what was causing it, but the intensity was so great, he closed them again. Splotches of green smattered across his vision.

“Come on, it won’t hang round all night.”

Héctor held his hand up to shield his eyes as he carefully got out of the hammock. Chich had seated himself at the edge of his shack where the wall had been ripped open years ago. In the distance Héctor could see the faint shadows of shabby cabins and skeletons climbing on top of roofs, gathering on balconies and looking through windows. But what grabbed Héctor’s, and everyone else’s, attention was the dark lake Shantytown rested on.

“Wha...? When did they get here?” Héctor gasped.

Drifting near the lake’s surface was a layer of glowing jellyfish. They were one of the few creatures in the Land of the Dead without bones. Without flesh, all that existed was the ghostly energy of the animal occasionally shaped as its previous living body. Héctor lowered his hand, curious if their smoky appearance felt like anything, or if he would fade through,  _or_  if the jellyfish’s body shape would collapse to avoid contact. His hand ran into Chich’s walking stick instead, the old skeleton not even looking at him but somewhere off in the distance. Héctor withdrew his hand and settled beside Chich. He leaned back slightly, feeling Chich’s hammock against the back of his head, and rapidly blinked his eyes so they adjusted to the light. Except … it wasn’t working …

Was it getting brighter? Héctor turned away again. His hammock was looking real tempting again. His arm was grabbed however and Chich grumbled, “You’ll get used to it. We’re  _dead_  after all.”

Slouching – Chich was never going to leave him alone about this was he? – Héctor forced himself to watch what shone like a small sun draw closer to Shantytown. Then he heard the sound of rolling waves crashing against the pillars holding up the shacks. Peering down, Héctor admired how the jellyfish moved with the waves without a care in the world. It reminded him of the laissez faire attitude that kept Shantytown running.

“Héctor.”

“Hmm–?”

Héctor’s voice cut off. Drawing close to their shack was… something. Unlike anything he had seen before. As the realisation of  _what_  he was looking at sank in, a static feeling overwhelmed him. This – this must be the dragon Chich had been talking about. It had to be. It couldn’t be anything else. It swam alongside the jellyfish, its body huge and thin, exactly like the serpent it was described to be. Yet that still wasn’t enough. It didn’t account for the green and blue scales lining its body like sea shells on a beach, or the delicate fins that spread out like whiskers, or the fluorescent light shining from within as though its very blood stream was glowing. And ‘serpent’ especially didn’t capture the bunches of coral reefs growing from the tips of its tail to its gills, each small cluster of coral hosting aquatic life like small towns across a country.

Héctor stared as the dragon swerved and swam underneath him. With the creature so close, it felt like his soul had accidentally slipped out of his body before crashing back in again as he spotted the scales’ individual shades, a crab scuttle into a hidey hole as a fish swam close to stay with its reef, and then its eye. It was sheltered around swaying seaweed, but its unyielding gaze still struck Héctor to the core. As it swept past, it dawned on him that the eye hadn’t even shifted once it saw him, as though he had been the ordinary wood of the shack or a jellyfish drifting nearby.

Once the dragon swam to another section of Shantytown, the waves its movement brought sprang up towards Héctor. The water spray snapped him out of his stunned daze.

“…What the fuck?” fell out before he could stop it.

Chich grunted beside him, slowly getting up in search of a bottle.

Héctor suddenly needed a drink as well. “I thought …I thought you …”

“What?”

“Thought you were joking.”

Chich scoffed, disgusted by the mere thought. “I don’t joke.”

“No kidding,” Héctor murmured back.

Two shots of tequila were poured and shared. Héctor held the glass in his hands, overhearing the excitement from Shantytown residents in the distance. There was a still a glowing light in the water, but it was gradually dimming. Chich clapped his glass against Héctor’s, grabbing his attention and said, “I was thinking about your guitar playing. You’re not that bad. Perhaps we could –?”

Héctor still wasn’t done though. His mind was active again, alight with inspiration.

“Can it swim everywhere?” he asked.

Chich glared at the interruption but took a sip of his drink to quell it. “What do you mean ‘everywhere’?”

“Can it help me cross the bridge?”

“No.”

The answer had been so short and final, Héctor wasn’t entirely sure where to go from there. He tapped the shot glass anxiously, knowing Chich didn’t want to hear anymore but he was desperate. “Really?”

Chich sighed. “Why would it help you? It’s there to manage the waters, not give piggy-back rides.”

“Oh.” Well, that wasn’t what he hoped to hear. Still hyped from inspiration, Héctor reinforced his positive thinking. “Doesn’t matter! I have other ideas.”

“Yeah?” Chich poured another shot.

Nodding enthusiastically, Héctor insisted, “Yes! Next year Chich… next time I’ll–”

~o0o~

 “– make it! I can make it,” Héctor repeated under his breath as he dodged the guards. A particularly large one jumped towards him and he skidded out of the way.

Héctor felt a bit of bone chip off the end of his heel. He winced, holding back a yelp but kept on running. He was  _so_  close! The marigold bridge was right there! He dived out of the way again as another guard attempted to intercept him. Every step closer to the bridge made Héctor run faster until finally the warmth and glow of the flowers rustled around his feet.

He kept going, the joy of his success addictive and empowering. He knew all his hard work and careful planning would one day pay off and – Héctor’s knees jarred. It was like his legs had slipped into wet concrete. Héctor grunted and glanced down to see the petals had swallowed him up to his thigh bones. And it wasn’t stopping.

“Oh no, no, no, no,  _no_.”

He tried pulling his legs out, but it only made him drop lower. He heard the concerned whispering of skeletons trying to celebrate the holiday, some of them casting off snide remarks like they’d spotted garbage in the street. The warmth of the bridge was getting too hot as it suffocated his legs and climbed to his hips. He flinched when he heard a whistle blow, followed by shouting. The security guards.

_No!_

Desperately, Héctor tried shoving his energy downwards in hopes of springing himself out of the flowers. It did nothing but unbalance him, his flailing arms landing on the flowers. Héctor growled under his breath –this stupid dumb annoying flower bridge!– and went to rearrange his hat which had angled ungracefully over his eyes. Except his couldn’t move his hands. He gasped and tugged his arms, only for his elbows to join too.

There was a moment of clarity where Héctor realised the bridge’s weird gravity had consumed the last of his balance. “Help!” he yelled before falling back into the petals.

How the other skeletons answered Héctor didn’t know. All he heard as he was pulled under was the loud shuffling of petals as they surrounded him, seeping all throughout his skeleton body like water. It felt like he was in an oven, too hot and too stuffy. The chipped off bone in his foot stung in the heat and a dizziness forced his eyes shut. He tried moving his limbs to swim through the chaos, but it was too heavy, it might as well be mud he was stuck in… he was stuck. Héctor opened his eyes, frantically trying to find  _something_  to get him out.

He was stuck.  _Díos_ , he was stuck! Héctor tried to beg for help but only swallowed a bunch of petals. He fought through the flowers to force his hand up, hoping it would break through the surface and find a security guard to pull him up. He couldn’t break through. The weight of the flowers forced his arm down. He was  _stuck_! He was–! He was–!

Héctor’s panicking thoughts halted. Before him, the petals moved from chaos into synchronised patterns like ocean currents. Héctor, unable to move, stared at the dancing petals around him. What felt like his stomach flipped and, suddenly, he was moving. Not on his own, but as though he was a passenger in Chich’s van. Maybe the guards had grabbed something to dig him out?

Just as Héctor was feeling slightly lighter about the situation, the body of petals in front of him dramatically dived down, and before him Héctor saw the marigold bridges over the canyon. Héctor started. When had he–? How did he–? Below, the skeletons on the bridges were staring, lost in utter amazement or fear. Some backed away, others held their hands to their faces and a few jaws completely unhinged and fell. Héctor’s ribcage trembled as it finally dawned on him that he was floating above the bridges.

His eyes widened when he heard a low growl. It was soft in sound but the petals he sat on shook. Looking over his shoulder, Héctor’s bones went rigid. A dragon. He was flying on a dragon.

…Chich was going to  _love_  this.

There was another growl and the flowers making up the dragon’s long neck pulsed. Marigold flowers encompassed its entire body – it  _was_  its body, Héctor realised with amazement – the petals constantly twisting and twirling, never sticking to one solid form. The dragon’s head turned and Héctor warily noticed the two horns of sharp tangled branches growing out of the orange flowers, just above where its eyes would be. He remembered how insignificant the eyes of Shantytown Serpent had made him feel, yet he still would have preferred it over the  _nothing_  this dragon had. As though it didn’t even need to bother looking. His mind could scarcely comprehend what was happening or why, but he didn’t want to do anything to set the beast off. So, like a well-behaved child at the back of a vehicle, he stayed still and silent as the dragon lowered itself towards the Department of Family Reunions.

Just as Héctor wondered if he was to jump off the creature, the petals sprang up and circled around him like a tornado. He seized his hat as it threatened to escape with the dragon. In a matter of seconds, the petals dwindled away until there was nothing but a leftover wind current and then that eased off like a retreating storm. Héctor’s hands were still tightly holding his hat. Blinking, he realised he was back on solid ground and a lot of people were staring.

Feeling awkward, Héctor said smartly, with a faint crack in his voice from the shock, “I …that was meant to happen.”

And like that, it broke the spell and skeletons began to move again, albeit glancing over the bridge and into the canyon to see if the dragon was still there. Héctor’s finger bones ached a little as he let go of his hat. He stumbled over to the edge, his knees almost giving out.  _It was just a dragon_ , he tried convincing himself. No need to get so worked up about it. Inside the canyon, he saw nothing but complete darkness. The Cempasúchil dragon was gone.

By now, Héctor knew the nature of these dragons and willed himself not to feel so disappointed that he couldn’t even say thank you. Folding his arms, Héctor turned back to the bridge trying to think of a new plan to get across. Then he noticed a guard approach him.

The poor guard’s eyes darted back and forth between Héctor and the canyon as she said, “Uhh… are you –?”

~o0o~

“– okay,” Coco answered, uncertain.

Judging by her Papá’s look, she hadn’t sounded convincing. “Really, I’m okay…” she assured him, although a part of her did wonder how she would have taken it had she still been alive with an old heart.

It had taken her a few seconds to finally realise what she was looking at. At first, all she could comprehend was that the sky was  _moving_. Then lightning struck, forking alongside the snake-like creature. Reacting to the lightning, colour flashed across the creature’s body like fireworks. Coco had gasped, her hand slipping from the doorframe to clutch at her shawl. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing and yet… there it was. Way up high, slithering through the storm clouds like a fish in thick seaweed, was a creature so enormous it dwarfed the Land of the Dead’s towers. She tugged the shawl closer to her collarbone and said uneasily, “It’s… not dangerous, is it?”

Her Papá rested a hand on her shoulder. It felt as warm as his tone as he said, “It’s perfectly safe, so long as you stay out of its way.”

Coco thought of the travelling gondolas she and Julio took for their shopping trips and dance outings; they climbed high to the tips of the towers but never to the point this creature flew. Her neck started to hurt as it craned back, unable to take her eyes off it. She counted herself lucky she could see such a thing. “What does it …why is it here?”

Her Papá shrugged. “No one’s entirely sure.” Looking at the dragon again, he gave a soft grateful smile, “Though…I noticed, even during the worst storms, lightning never struck Shantytown.”

Above, the dragon turned and from behind a cloud emerged its head amongst a mane of red feathers, huge and eye-catching like a lion’s. The mane glowed, its light revealing the black feathers underneath and presumably the rest of its body. Coco surprised herself when her eyes suddenly stung.

“Does it have a name or…?”

“Well, around here they call it the Cōzamālōtl Dragon,” her Papá said, grabbing an umbrella from a nook.

“Oh…” Coco answered calmly. Then asked, feeling silly, “What does that mean?”

“The Rainbow Dragon,” Héctor clarified.

“ _Oh,_ ” Coco said, finally understanding as another lightning bolt stuck and colour rippled across the dragon’s scales. She nudged her Papá and added cheekily, “I knew that.”

Héctor softly chuckled. “Back at Shantytown they called it, uh… never mind.”

Coco released her shawl and held her Papá’s hand. “Oh, go on.” Then she squeezed it and said with a wide grin, “I got a better sense of humour than Mamá. You can tell me.”

At least she got her Papá to laugh. With his free hand, he swung the umbrella like he was going to dance with it and said sheepishly, “We, um, we called it the Gay Dragon.” Well, Coco hadn’t expected that. Seeing her expression, her Papá explained in a rush, “It was a joke! Like – like a rainbow? Like a–”

“I get it,” Coco assured.

“It was funny at the time. Or… okay, maybe it wasn’t  _that_  funny but, you know, some folks really liked it.”

As he spoke, Coco watched the clouds shift again. She gasped at the brilliant rainbow wings sprouting from the dragon. They reminded her of the light rain of a sun shower. At her gasp, her Papá glanced back at the dragon. It was nearly out of sight. He unfurled the umbrella and guided Coco outside into the garden, where they could still see the dragon as a bolt of lightning shattered across its wings.

Their feet were damp, and they needed hot baths afterwards but for now, they were content watching the dragon drift peacefully through the storm.

\- END -

  

**Author's Note:**

> The Cōzamālōtl (Rainbow) Dragon art by Dara  
> The Cempasúchil (Marigold) dragon art by Coral  
> The Xoxotla (Glisten) Serpent art by Dara  
> Thank you Paper for beta-reading!
> 
> The dragons in the Breath of the Wild are my favourite part of the game. Therefore, dragons should definitely be in Coco.  
> Big thanks to all those in discord who contributed to the creation of these guys. PaperGardener, Hybrid, Liani, Dara and Coral. You guys are cool beans.


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